SMOKE DREAMS UNDER THE COSH

Last Month's Police Raids In Nimbin Have Delivered The Local Cannabis
Market Back To The Street Dealers, Fiona Cameron Reports

THE officer-in-charge of Nimbin Police Station has been on sick leave
these past few months. Contrary to local talk, police say it is not
stress leave.

``There's no such thing,'' says Richmond local area command officer
Detective Inspector Bryan Boulton. ``He's on sick leave.''

But stress must be part and parcel of policing in Nimbin. In a town
that is pretty much known for one thing -- drugs -- officers with a
community policing charter clearly have a difficult job. And in a
town that also has been riding the wave of growth in international
tourism -- the hot spot of the lucrative young backpacker market --
being at the front line of the war on drugs must have become that
much tougher in recent times.

Like its rebellious flower children of 1973, Nimbin is still failing
to toe the line. Pot politics is almost always at the top of the
public agenda in this quirky NSW north coast village. The official
line is that people are arrested for drug use and possession if they
openly flout the law. What the reality has been in Nimbin for some
time is that, unless you light up a joint in front of a police
officer and blow the smoke in his face, you're pretty safe.

Richmond local area commander Superintendent Barry Audsley says
publicly that drug policing in Nimbin focuses on heroin, not
cannabis. But two issues -- sniffer dogs and police raids last month
on Nimbin's cannabis cafes -- have brought police activities on the
north coast into the spotlight.

Nimbin police do make drug arrests and issue cautions -- including,
legend has it, the time a young Japanese tourist went into the
station to complain about being ripped off in a pot deal, producing
his purchase as evidence. Such a tale speaks volumes about Nimbin's
ambience. So open has the town been -- until last month -- that many
tourists do not even realise that marijuana is illegal here.

Starting this week, police have allocated two target action group
officers to patrol the beat in Nimbin each weekday, but say the
sniffer dogs have gone back to Sydney and will be used only on
special operations.

Annual police raids on the hills around Nimbin attract much publicity
and snare a few growers, but have no effect whatsoever on the supply
of marijuana on the street, according to the Nimbin Hemp Embassy. It
estimates that about $7 million worth of marijuana is traded in
Nimbin each year.

With about 10,000 people in town one weekend last month for the
annual Mardi Grass harvest festival, police adopted the same approach
as in previous years -- stand back and let it all roll on. About six
police wandered the beat in pairs, but there was only one arrest, for
a traffic offence.

As in previous years, festival organiser the Nimbin Hemp Embassy took
responsibility for security with its guerilla ``jungle patrol''.
After nine successful festivals, even critics acknowledge that the
hippies have learned a thing or two about successful event management.

This year's festival capped the end of a particularly high season for
many traders and businesses in Nimbin because in the past year the
cannabis cafes have been an extra tourist drawcard. Built on the
Amsterdam model, the cafes offered small quantities of marijuana for
sale over the counter at set prices.

Under the auspices of a local committee that says it liaised openly
with police, politicians, public servants and even members of the
judiciary, up to six cafes have been operating ``transparently'',
according to Hemp Embassy spokesman Michael Balderstone.

``We understand that lots of these politicians and police can't be
seen to be giving us official approval, but we all wanted the same
thing -- to clean up the street scene -- and we felt we had
unofficial nods and silent and tacit approval from the authorities
and the Government,'' Balderstone says.

``The joke is, they sent undercover cops in to find out about these
cannabis cafes and they couldn't find any evidence because, unlike on
the street, it [cannabis] was never pushed on anyone. You had to ask
for it over the counter. We had regulated prices, it was never sold
to anyone under 18, it came with health warnings and it was only sold
in small quantities.''

Since the cafe raids, Nimbin's famously easygoing lifestyle is no
more, and the mood has turned to fear and trepidation. ``I feel
betrayed and bewildered more than anything,'' Balderstone says. ``We
consulted with everyone we could, at very high levels, and told them
all about the cafe trial and what we were doing.''

As it turns out, that wasn't enough. On Monday, May 15, about 35
police, some armed and accompanied by two sniffer dogs, swooped. They
targeted two cafes, locked doors, searched patrons and charged two
people with charges related to supplying cannabis. Police say 10
tourists were cautioned.

``One phone call would have been enough,'' says Balderstone. ``We
would have closed down the cafes with one phone call if we had been
given any warning.''

The economic impact is already hurting Nimbin.

``Business is way down in the past few weeks,'' says one shop
proprietor. ``You can see the difference since the raids. The word
gets around quickly. People aren't going to come here if they think
they are going to be searched and there'll be sniffer dogs
everywhere.''

BUT many locals say the tragedy of the police cafe raids is that they
delivered the cannabis market back to the street dealers.

``There had been a real difference to the atmosphere on the street in
the past 12 months,'' says businessman Robin Archbold. He says he has
battled for most of his 14 years as a real estate agent in Nimbin to
stop street dealers approaching people as they peruse properties for
sale in his front window.

``The cafes added to the ambience here that people come to
experience,'' Archbold says. ``They were a fabulous success. They
were making their mark and had just started to really bite into the
street-dealing scene. You could see the difference just walking down
the street.''

Archbold surveyed every business operating in Nimbin and asked
whether they were in favour of regulated cannabis supply through
cafes or other outlets (40 out of 42 said yes) and whether the cafes
had helped reduce the street scene (75 per cent said yes).

With the cafes biting into the street-dealing scene, all had not been
happy on the streets in the past year. The Hemp Embassy had a window
broken in an attack it says was from dealers who saw its cafe scheme
as a police-protected racket.

``Our opponents came from many sides,'' says one of the cafe proprietors.

Balderstone says it is ironic that the Government is spending ``a
fortune to promote north coast tourism and another fortune busting
the backpackers who come here''.

Boulton says it is ``absolute rubbish'' to suggest police had turned
a blind eye to the cannabis cafes. ``There were reports over a period
of time, but you need hard evidence to get search warrants,'' he says.

Undercover officers who went into the cafes in two earlier operations
were not offered cannabis, he says, but in the latest operation, in
April, police had observed evidence of supply in two cafes.

Balderstone, the federal president of the HEMP Party, says the party
will run a candidate in the July 14 Aston by-election in Melbourne.
Candidates also will be run in marginal electorates across the
country in the federal election.

The cafe trial had been a huge help in showing how regulated outlets
might work, he says.

``We'd all talked about it for years, but now at least people know
how sane and safe it could be. In that way it's been a huge success
and new models will be submitted to the Government to try [to] get a
sanctioned trial up.''